Doug Michels
Douglas Donald Michels known as Doug Michels was an American architect, artist, and designer. He was a co-founder of the Ant Farm collective.
Early life
Born in Seattle, Washington, Michels studied at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and at Oxford University in England before graduating with a degree in architecture from Yale University in 1967. Michels also studied architecture at Harvard.Career
Ant Farm
Michels met Chip Lord in 1968, when Michels gave a guest lecture at Tulane University, where Lord was attending school. The two met again in August 1968 at an architecture workshop directed by Lawrence Halprin in San Francisco. Michels and Lord founded Ant Farm at this workshop.The group's initial goal was to reform education, but with little funding, Michels and Lord relocated to Houston, Texas, where they took posts as visiting professors at the University of Houston.The group first began putting on performances there, including their "inflatables." Eventually, Lord and Michels were joined by Hudson Marquez and Curtis Schreier.
The group was a self-described "art agency that promotes ideas that have no commercial potential, but which we think are important vehicles of cultural introspection." In addition to their architecture works, the collective was well known for counter-cultural performances and media events, such as Media Burn. Ant Farm's installation, Cadillac Ranch, remains an iconic sculpture in American popular culture.
In 1972, Michels and Lord collaborated with Houston architect Richard Jost on the House Of The Century, a futuristic concept of a home. Ant Farm disbanded in 1978 when a fire destroyed their San Francisco studio.